About That Kiss: A Heartbreaker Bay Novel Read online

  Joe hated reports.

  In the good news department, the embezzler had been caught and Joe and Lucas had secured a very nice bonus for Hunt Investigations from the pleased and relieved client.

  But it was nine o’clock that night before Joe got to Kylie’s place. He stood on the porch and once again remembered the other night, how he’d felt watching Gib come out of her apartment obviously in possession of a key, and his own over-the-top reaction.

  Because he’d wanted it to be him.

  Just as he lifted his hand to knock—since he didn’t have a damn key—he heard Kylie cry out from inside.

  In five seconds he’d broken in and had his gun out. Sweeping his gaze across the room, he found Kylie on asleep on the couch, clearly in the throes of a bad dream. He quickly cleared the room and the rest of the apartment before coming back into the living room to crouch at her side. “Kylie,” he said softly.

  “Don’t leave me,” she whispered, voice thick with tears, and for a minute Joe’s heart stopped because . . . she wanted him to stay?

  He dropped to his knees and took one of her flailing hands in his. She squeezed it tight and pressed it to her heart. “Grandpa, please don’t die.”

  Well, hell. All those of years living with his dad and then his own experiences in the military had taught Joe the dangers of waking someone up without warning. But this was Kylie and she’d been reduced to heart-wrenching whimpers, so he scooped her up into his arms and sat on the couch with her in his lap. “I’ve got you, Kylie.” He brushed a kiss to her damp brow. “You’re safe. Wake up now.”

  At the sound of his voice she instantly came awake. He could tell by the sudden stillness of her entire body and how she stopped breathing. Pulling her in closer, he kept his mouth at her temple. “You okay?”

  She let out a shuddery sigh and relaxed into him, pressing her face into the crook of his neck as she nodded. He didn’t believe it for a second, but sometimes one had to fake it to make it, so he let her have that one. “Bad dream?”

  Face still buried against him, she nodded again. She had one arm around his neck, the other clutching something.

  A photo.

  Shit. He pried it from her fingers. It was the penguin, perched on the edge of a bonfire this time, tipped as if it was about to fall in. He started to get up, but she tightened her grip and he relaxed back into the couch, willing to give her whatever time she needed to compose herself. He held her close with one hand, using the other to pull out his phone to access the app that would bring up the feed of the security camera he’d installed outside her door the last time she’d gotten a delivery.

  The camera recorded only when there was motion, so he could zip straight to any action, as he’d been doing two times a day since he installed the camera. He ran quickly through, pausing at the first action sequence—a cat chasing a bird.

  And then a shadow arriving on the porch, time-stamped to several hours before.

  Male.

  Bulky.

  He wore a hoodie sweatshirt and kept his face averted as he shoved the manila envelope into Kylie’s mail slot before vanishing into the night.

  “I got a new pic,” she murmured, face still planted against him.

  “I see that,” Joe said calmly, but he wasn’t actually calm at all. He was furious—for her.

  “It upset me,” she said.

  “Of course it did.”

  “No,” she said, and then paused. “I mean it upset me because it showed the penguin near a fire.”

  And he got that too. “Because of the warehouse fire.”

  “Yes. It’s the setup. It’s a play on how he died.”

  “But he didn’t die in the fire,” Joe said. “He died two days later when he succumbed to his injuries in the hospital.”

  She blinked in surprise. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I researched it.”

  “Wait.” She stared at him. “You researched him? Did you research me too?”

  “I research every job I take. It’s why I’m so good at what I do.”

  “Right.” She nodded, scooting back away from him, making herself comfortable in a small ball on the far end of her couch. “I’m a job. Somehow I keep forgetting that.”

  “Okay, not what I meant.”

  “You researched me,” she whispered to herself.

  “Yes.” Joe drew a deep breath and held eye contact as he gave her the rest. “And there’s something else. I put a security camera outside your front door. Motion sensor detection.”

  She gasped. “You what?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were safe and also hopefully ID whoever was doing this at the same time.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” he asked.

  “I thought maybe you’d want to apologize for the camera thing.”

  “No, because I’m not sorry,” he said.

  She stared at him and he blew out a breath. “Okay, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he said. “But not for the camera itself.”

  She studied him and then nodded. “Did you get anything?”

  “Not until tonight.” He showed her the feed. “Recognize him?”

  “I can’t tell.” She shook her head. “He’s smart. He kept his head down and the hoodie up.” She slid him a look. “What did you learn about me? When you did your research?”

  “Mostly stuff I already knew.” That she’d been raised primarily by her grandpa because they’d been teenagers when they’d had her and hadn’t been up to the task. A fact that’d been proven the time that a four-year-old Kylie had been found in the street in the middle of the night, having walked out the front door after being scared awake from a bad dream and finding out that she’d been alone in the house. Her dad hadn’t been in the picture by then and her mom had gone out for the night.

  That’s when Kylie’s grandpa had stepped in and taken her. She’d grown up and attended an art high school where she’d showed big promise. The tragic warehouse fire had happened the summer following graduation.

  Afterward, she’d taken a year off from school, then gotten her AA before entering in her chosen field. She’d worked for herself on her own for a short time before going to Reclaimed Woods.

  She was looking at Joe and then suddenly she broke eye contact. “The dream I just had . . . It reminded me that there’s something I haven’t told you about, either. Something I wasn’t sure I was going to tell you at all.”

  “Okay.” He tried to meet her gaze, but she wasn’t having it.

  “It’s something I’ve never told anyone,” she said.

  He got up and moved closer, sitting right next to her, and ran his hand up her back and into her hair, trying to soothe her. “You can tell me anything.”

  She gave a mirthless laugh.

  “Anything, Kylie.”

  She shook her head. “You’re going to think different of me after you hear it.”

  Gently he pulled on her ponytail until she looked at him. “Listen to me,” he said. “I’ve done and seen shit that would make your hair curl . . .” He spared a glance for her wavy hair and smiled. “More than it already is.”

  She gave him a small smile but shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

  “I do understand,” he said. “I was an asshole punk when I was younger. And then in the military . . .” It was his turn to shake his head. “So trust me. There’s nothing you can tell me that would change my mind about you.”

  “It’s my fault.” Her eyes filled with tears, but not a single one spilled over. “It’s my fault my grandpa died.”

  He shook his head. “The fire was deemed an accident by the arson investigator,” he said. “It’s believed that possibly a soldering iron caught fire. Your grandfather was soldering some copper pieces onto a dresser but no one was listed as at fault.”

  “I was the last one to use the soldering iron,” she said. “Which makes the fire my fault.”

  “That wasn’t in the reports,” he said.